Conventionally, in an electrophotographic type toner image forming apparatus, it is widely applied that an image forming section collects toner left on an image carrier after an image on the image carrier is transferred to an intermediate transfer body, and feeds the collected toner to a developing device again to reuse the toner. In a case of using such an image forming apparatus, a user can save the consumption of the toner.
Particularly, in recent years, a kind of toner obtained by adding value to highly decorative toner in which special pigment is used or decolorable toner is used as the toner. Such a kind of toner with high added value is more expensive than normal toner. Thus, the user can obtain significant cost benefits if the toner with high added value can be recycled.
However, in an image forming apparatus provided with a plurality of image forming sections that use both the toner with high added value and the normal toner, the normal toner may be mixed with the toner with high added value when collecting the toner with high added value. In this case, the toner cannot be reused efficiently.